Bill Clinton on Obama: “A Few Years Ago, This Guy Would Have Been Carrying Our Bags”

Sep 4, 2012

RUSH: In advance of Clinton’s speech, at the Democrat convention, there have been amazingly a bunch of articles recalling Clinton’s disparaging remarks about Obama during the 2008 campaign. Now, that book Game Change, which HBO made into a movie about Sarah Palin, Mark Halperin’s book, Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. They described Clinton trying to get Ted Kennedy’s endorsement for Hillary, and they had Clinton talking to Ted Kennedy. They quote Clinton as saying: (paraphrasing) “You know, Ted, a few years ago this guy would be getting us coffee.”

In the New Yorker, Ryan Lizza reports that the late Tim Russert told him of a similar comment by Clinton. According to Ryan Lizza, via Tim Russert, Clinton said to Ted Kennedy: “You know, Ted, a few years ago this guy would have been carrying our bags.” And Clinton’s impression of Obama hasn’t improved since 2008. Last year he told a bunch of friends, and this is in Ed Klein’s book, The Amateur, Clinton told a bunch of friends: (summary via Clinton impression) You know this guy, Obama, he doesn’t even know how to be president. He doesn’t know how the world works. How could he? He’s been too busy fetching my coffee, carrying my bags. (chuckling)”

CNN’s Soledad O’Brien, named after a prison, interviewed Ryan Lizza on Clinton’s remark about Obama fetching baggage and Soledad called the remark racist. Ryan Lizza said, “I don’t think it’s racial. I don’t think Bill Clinton has a racist bone in his body.” See, when a Democrat describes a black guy as a step and fetch it, that’s not racism, because Democrats can’t be racist. Clinton was just trying to talk about how relatively inexperienced Obama was. He didn’t have any experience. That’s all Clinton was saying when he told Ted Kennedy just a few years ago this guy would be fetching our coffee.

Now, I don’t know if Ryan Lizza wants to come off as an expert about every bone in Clinton’s body. There are a number of women who could testify about that, I’m sure, with far more credibility than Ryan Lizza. (Coughing under breath) The bottom line is that Clinton may claim that Obama would have carried his bags a few years ago, but this week Clinton’s going to carry Obama’s dirty water. And what if he doesn’t? He won’t let anybody see his speech. I’m seeing stories, this is something as a human being I don’t understand. In the real world, we’re getting stories, these two guys don’t like each other. I don’t know if that’s true or not. But let’s say that it is. I mean, some of the stories have said it’s more than dislike. It is a visceral hatred that these guys have for one another.

And the reason Clinton has this hatred for Obama is obviously what he did to Hillary, that he played the race card on Clinton in the 2008 campaign, and that Obama is a much bigger star than Clinton ever was, which is saying something, because in the Democrat Party Clinton was it. Then on the other side we’re told that Obama has no love loss for Clinton either, and it’s more than just dislike. So why, if you’re Obama, would you dare have this guy? If they’re really enemies, why would you give this guy prime time? You know he’s going to be promoting his wife. The whole idea here is for Hillary to be back in the White House, 2016, not now. I guess the assumption is that they’re going to gut it up for the party and at the end of this Clinton is ultimately going to end up advocating for Obama, but it’s still a risk.

So I don’t know if these stories about how these guys hate each other are really true or not, but they’re out there. Knowing Obama as I think I do, if you’re Clinton and you say, “Ted, this guy should have been getting our baggage, fetching our coffee,” that’s the kind of stuff that would make Obama livid and not ever forget that, and then chalk it up and pack it away for further use later on down the line. This stuff is really perplexing to me. But it boils down to this is the sad shape Obama’s in. If he has to give prime time to somebody he really doesn’t like, he’s the most powerful man in the world, and he has to give a prominent prime time hour to Bill Clinton, somebody he really doesn’t like, he must need the Bubba vote. It really just boils down to nothing more than that.

I think also there’s a good possibility that what Clinton’s going to do is talk about how great things were when he was president. There’s no question about that. Clinton is going to talk about the unemployment was down, the jobs are up, the tax increases, made it happen. Obama’s going to like hearing that. Obama would much rather run on Clinton’s record than his own. So to the extent that Clinton can make his record seem like Obama’s because they’re in the same party, the same philosophies, there may be an upside in that regard.

(interruption)

Well, no, not in their thinking it wouldn’t undermine Obama, if Clinton’s success is what Obama’s aspiring to in his next four years.That’s why the grade is incomplete. Look, it’s perverted, and I’m not an expert in perversion, but I can still see how this might…

(interruption)

The first black president wants to feed off of the success of the first black president, right, when you boil all of this down. But if the Republicans are smart, when this whole thing is over and after Clinton speaks, what Mitt or Ryan ought to go out there and say is, “Hey, Bill, your record, you didn’t build that. You couldn’t have done that without the Republicans in Congress. You couldn’t have done welfare reform without the Republicans in Congress.” Throw it right back at them. Who could carry all of Ted Kennedy’s and Bill Clinton’s baggage anyway? Is that really a cut to Obama? (laughing)

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Ryan Lizza in the New Yorker. They’re making a big deal out of this, by the way. This goes back to Clinton and his speech at the convention; how he and Obama don’t like each other. Clinton hasn’t turned his speech in yet so they can vet the thing. At least he hadn’t as of this morning. The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza is reporting a former White House aide and long-time political advisor to Clinton, a guy named Douglas Band, is going to vote for Romney.

Now I venture to say most people have never heard of Douglas Band. Stick with me on this. I know who he is. He was in Clinton’s office. He’s like Reggie Love, a “body guy” with policy responsibilities. He’s like Huma is for Hillary. You can call this guy Huma, Mr. Huma. But nobody knows who he is other than junkies like me. Why announce what he’s going to do? Who cares? So he’s going to vote for Romney. Why do you put that out? If you’re the Clinton office, why do you make a big deal out of that?

This guy, Douglas Band, is going to vote for Mitt Romney. Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker describes the uneasy relationship between President Obama and Clinton. From the magazine: “For Clinton, the politics are more complicated. His associates take it as a given that he would like nothing more than to see his wife become President. Hillary Clinton will step down as Secretary of State after the campaign and begin the process of deciding whether she will run in 2016.

“By some measures, a defeat for Obama in November would leave Hillary the undisputed leader of her party and propel her toward the Oval Office that much faster. At least one of ClintonÂ’s closest advisers seems to be backing that strategy. According to two people with direct knowledge, Douglas Band has said that he will vote for Romney.” Okay. Why put that out there? Nobody would know this. Is that a dog whistle? We’ve got a white guy on Clinton’s team saying he’s not going to vote for Obama. Is that racist?

But seriously, why announce this? It’s like saying that Ennis Slobodnik in Oshkosh is going to vote for Romney, as far as most people are concerned. But since it’s not Ennis Slobodnik in Oshkosh, it’s Doug Band in Clinton’s office, now it becomes a story. The day before Clinton’s supposed to address the convention, ostensibly promoting Obama, they put a story out that his big guy — one of his big guys — is voting for Romney.

Is it sabotage? Is it keeping the Wall Street guys happy for 2016 and for Hillary? Does it undermine Obama? This guy, Band, I just want to tell you: He’s one of Clinton’s closest advisers. That’s why you don’t know much about him. He’s big, but even now with the news getting out, it’s “Who? ” Imagine the morons trying to deal with it. “Doug who? What, what, what does it mean to me?”

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: By the way, it seems that Doug Band, Clinton’s aide who said he was going to vote for Romney, got his own personal tour of the Cory Booker Memorial Woodshed. He “reportedly said Tuesday that the idea he would vote for Mitt Romney was ‘preposterous.’ Band made the comment” that he was going to vote for Romney “to the National Memo website as he boarded a plane to Charlotte with the former president,” Bill Clinton.

He and Clinton were getting on a plane and somebody was there, and Doug Band said, “Yeah, I’m going to vote for Romney.” So they run the Romney story. Now, a couple days later: No, no, no! It’s “preposterous.” Whoever said he was going to vote for Romney, that’s utterly preposterous. “There shouldnÂ’t be any doubt that I will vote for Barack Obama,” Band says. The National Memo is a left-wing fringe Democrat front site, if you’ve ever heard of it.

So he had to walk it back. I don’t know. I still think he said it on purpose. And he’s happy to walk it back. What the hell? You’ll confuse people. There’s nothing with the Clintons that’s coincidence. Don’t doubt me. Nothing. I wish Romney… Well, Ryan got close to detailing the Obama record at the convention. I don’t think they’re going to hurt themselves by doing that. The truth, unemployment, gas price, family wealth, national debt, deficits? It’s right there.